Lisandro Martínez’s hostility and agility help bring steel back to United | Daniel Harris

Defender overcame a slow start and ahead of Saturday’s derby is contesting aerial challenges like a piranha on a trampoline After one minute of Manchester United’s game against Liverpool in August, you knew: Lisandro Martínez is for real. Because that was when he clattered, then barged through Mohamed Salah for no apparent reason and no obvious gain. English football’s frequently toxic and forever self-mythologising rhetoric tells us this is just how big men behave. But reality is different: save, perhaps, an airport, there’s nowhere safer to start a row than on a Premier League pitch, because the chances of reprisals are almost zero. Consider, for example, Martin Keown and Ruud van Nistelrooy: jumping on someone from behind works well in football’s posturing pantomime, but in a square go the sensible money would be on the martial artist able to exercise self-control because he knows there’s no serious threat. Continue reading...